Armchair Arcade - beachhttp://www.armchairarcade.com/neo/taxonomy/term/2076/0
en-USVolleyball (Magnavox Odyssey, 1972)http://www.armchairarcade.com/neo/node/3108
<p><span class="inline inline-left"><img src="http://i.tinysrc.mobi/http://www.armchairarcade.com/neo/files/images/OvrlyVollB1024x768.img_assist_custom-366x275.jpg" alt="Though there isn&amp;#039;t even a passing resemblance and they&amp;#039;re obviously Male, I still like to refer to these six volleyball players (from left to right) as: Ayane, Christie, Helena, Hitomi, Kasumi and Lei Fang." title="Though there isn&amp;#039;t even a passing resemblance and they&amp;#039;re obviously Male, I still like to refer to these six volleyball players (from left to right) as: Ayane, Christie, Helena, Hitomi, Kasumi and Lei Fang." class="image image-img_assist_custom-366x275 " width="366" height="275" /><span class="caption" style="width: 364px;"><i>Though there isn&#039;t even a passing resemblance and they&#039;re obviously Male, I still like to refer to these six volleyball players (from left to right) as: Ayane, Christie, Helena, Hitomi, Kasumi and Lei Fang.</i></span></span></p>
<p>Fast-forward to the present day (2010, to those of you reading this in some 25th century museum/blog-vault), videogame volleyball will evolve/has evolved/evolved into poly-polygonal, progressively scanned-tily clad women bouncing around on exotic beaches and buying each other cute gifts. Back here in 1972/73, where <i>I</i> am, <i>Volleyball</i> for Odyssey is the primordial soup of videogame volleyball. Don't forget, those little figures on the overlay are static; frozen eternally in those positions. The only movement on the screen occurs with the PlayerSpots and the BallSpot, just like in the previous 20-or-so Odyssey games.</p>
<p>What <i>is</i> exciting is that this game utilizes a new numbered cartridge! Seeing a shiny new number "7" on the cart used to play the game <i>does</i> add a little excitement to its initial playing. To recap, for anyone who may not know, cards for Odyssey don't have programs on them. They act as switches to simply toggle the display of, and modify the behaviors of, the "spots" which Odyssey broadcasts to your TV. The hardware variation used by this lucky number "7" cartridge creates a half-height version of the CenterLineSpot (only seen previously in <i>Table Tennis</i>) and stations it at the bottom of the screen as a volleyball "net".<br />
<div class="image-clear"></div>
<p><a href="http://www.armchairarcade.com/neo/node/3108" target="_blank">read more</a></p>http://www.armchairarcade.com/neo/node/3108#comments1972baerbeachchronogamingextrememagnavox odysseySlogsportstwo-playervideogamevolleyballSun, 24 Jan 2010 00:34:07 +0000Michael McCourt3108 at http://www.armchairarcade.com/neo